Brand: American Express
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here
Target: Patient Card-Seekers
Rating: **
Reviewer: David

Description:
Film director Wes Anderson of Rushmore, The Life Aquatic and The Royal Tenenbaums fame stars in his own long-format American Express ad. The two-minute spot starts with a conversation between a Sikh and an a man dressed in white and features a mansion, a blinking ballpoint pen and an exploding car. This is quickly revealed to be the set of a movie with Wes Anderson directing. The camera follows him as he goes from diversion to diversion, reminding himself “American Express commercial” in the middle. After numerous interruptions and one use of his Amex card for $15,000 he concludes with “My life is about telling stories. My card is American Express.”

What Works:
This spot begs to be described as ‘madcap’ or ‘zany’ and does mirror the pacing and seeming randomness of some of Mr. Anderson’s film work, which might endear it to fans. Amex gets good branding here because of Mr. Anderson’s announcement early on and his use of his black Amex card in the middle of the spot. The two-minute format is distinctive. Even if this long-format advertising is not entirely owned by American Express, Amex is quickly becoming synonymous with this tactic. The core brand attribute of individualism as expressed in the “My Life. My Card.” tagline is strongly reinforced by the unique nature of this spot.

What Doesn’t:
We chose this spot to comment on primarily because it gives us some insight into the problem of consumer-controlled media. The bigger example recently occured with the Chevy Tahoe incident (story at Adjab) where General Motors allowed consumers to create their own commercial and the results were so awful that they made NightLine. That was an obvious risk of uncontrolled user-generated advertising. But we think that this American Express spot points to a less obvious risk. If you hire someone artistic and famous to create a commercial for you, give them complete creative control and the result is - well, bizarre - what do you do?

If the filmmaker is well-known and you really have given over creative control, the honorable course is to run the spot. American Express has taken the honorable course. But what about the advertising?

The best spot in this series may be the M. Night Shayamalan spot (see our review here). This, too is an odd creature, but it intrigues and enchants and in the end fulfills the brand promise and strengthens the campaign. Wes Anderson’s take on the genre is a conscious self-parody which falls flat under the weight of pretense and ego. Instead of seeing how absurd the whole Hollywood game is and lampooning the egomaniacal directors, the only believable point of focus in this crazy jumble is the egocentric director Wes Anderson who is entirely believable as the focal point in the eye of the tornado. His glib “right - American Express commercial” feels like a putdown on American Express.

This is a difficult spot to review because it is tricky to judge what the reaction of the prospective Amex cardholder will be to this spot. The branding is good and it certainly is “My Life. My Card.” But this advertising blog feels that the execution in this case hurts the strategy. We know that American Express enables card members to do a lot of things - some good and some bad. We’d rather see the good.

Branding Bottom Line:
More Rushmore and less Life Aquatic would have made for a better Amex spot. Two thumbs down.

Brand: American Express
Execution: TV (Academy Awards 2006)
Link: Click Here
Target: Individuals
Rating: ****
Reviewer: David

Description
This 2:00 minute spot shows M. Night Shyamalan, the director of “The Sixth Sense” and “The Village” sitting in a restaurant. As he watches the patrons, strange and stranger things begin to happen. We can see his vision infiltrate the actions of the people around him. Then a waitress interrupts his thoughts and breaks the spell. The voiceover - in his voice says, “My life is about finding time to dream. That’s why my card is American Express.”

What Works
American Express has been willing to take chances to breakthrough (some successful, some unfortunate like Andy Roddick’s mojo). This spot represents a huge risk with its long length (four times the length of the average network television spot), expensive talent and limited branding.

This advertising blog believes that with this execution, the American Express ‘My life, my card’ campaign has finally broken through. The selling proposition is tricky and indirect. But the campaign has created a memorable visual style and linked the individuality of each subject to the essential unique difference of the Amex card - flexibility.

It was not clear that this breakthrough would occur with earlier executions. The Kate Winslett and Ellen DeGeneres spots were beautifully produced and involving. But the connection to American Express seemed a little less compelling. It is not the bulk or the production value of the M. Night Shyamalan execution that tips the campaign but rather the accumulated weight and uniqueness of the campaign.

The spot itself is dazzling. The production is so quiet as to be almost still, but vibrates with the inner energy of the characters at the tables surrounding Shyamalan. It is an authentic look into his imagination.

What Doesn’t Work
A single exposure to this commercial might do Mr. Shyamalan much more good than American Express, as was true for Ellen DeGeneres and Kate Winslett. This campaign will only be effective for the regular television viewer.

Branding Bottom Line
American Express meets the Twilight Zone. It works.

Brand: American Express
Execution: TV
Link: Click Here
Target: Affluent credit card users
Rating: *
Reviewer: David
Description:
A series of two ads for American Express timed for the US Open featuring tennis champ Andy Roddick - one aired before the event started and the second shown after Roddick’s devastating first round loss in the U.S. Open. In the first ad we see Roddick going to bed the night before the competition only to have his alter-ego - his ‘mojo’ - party all night without him. Roddick looks tired and out of sorts as he warms up the next day, throwing his racquet to the ground in frustration as he asks another player, “Marty - you ever feel like you’re just … missing something?” The spot ends up with the question “Will Andy get his mojo back.” The second spot is a press conference featuring Roddick’s mojo where he insists that he will be back at practice with Andy saying Andy said that “Redemption Does Not Hit the Snooze Button.” The second spot ends with a shot of the green Amex card and the tagline “A World of Service”

What Works:
There is a very obvious, age-old problem with celebrity endorsements - they rely on the credibility of the celebrity and that credibility can change quickly if that celebrity is arrested or misbehaves. When athletes are hired to promote events they are competing in that challenge is magnified. A company trying to tie itself with a winner can just as often rope itself to a loser and be dragged down by him.

This campaign for American Express is fascinating precisely because it openly and forthrightly acknowledges and embraces that danger. Even more interesting is the fact that the worst case scenario did happen in this case - the celebrity champion did not just lose - he lost in the first round on the first day of a two-week tournament. Roddick was humiliated not just because he lost but because he was a favorite and because he lost to a virtually unknown player from Luxembourg named Gilles Muller.

Thus when we see Andy’s mojo out partying without him in the first spot and Roddick looking terrible the next day, American Express has openly raised the possibility of a loss for Roddick. That is very brave and certainly makes this spot memorable - at least for Roddick if not for American Express.

The second spot then seems to address the loss head-on. Andy will be back, it says and seems proudly to flaunt the loss rather than retreating from it. Again, AMEX wins points for forthrightness and bravery here.

What Doesn’t:
The real question we need to ask as brand marketers, however, is what does this campaign do for American Express? The first spot is puzzling, looking at moments like a promotion for identity theft as Andy Roddick’s geeky looking mojo (who does not resemble Roddick at all) clowns around town with his AMEX card. Then the startling shot of Roddick playing badly makes it difficult to deduce what the brand positioning for American Express ought to be. Is Amex so tempting that we’ll be seduced into overspending and undersleeping, ignoring our basic responsibilities? That is too close to the reality of charge cards to be helpful to American Express.

The real world defeat of Roddick and the surprising decision by Amex to run the second spot only ads to the confusion created by the first ad. Now we see that Roddick has lost and we know (before we even see the spot) that is has been an awful affair. The spot reinforces this and ties the loss back to the American Express brand in case we hadn’t already done that ourselves. Although it ends with a defiant tone - Andy will be back - it again doesn’t seem to do anything to strengthen the American Express brand name. Just the opposite, in fact. Amex is reinforcing the connection to a losing cause (Roddick will be back but the 2005 US Open is over for him and for Amex).

This campaign sounds like a high-concept way to make celebrity athletic endorsements that are event related work - make a joke of the possibility of losing and get as much buzz as is possible regardless of the outcome. Unfortunately losing is never a good thing for professional athletes and regardless of what shine you put on it, having a key spokesperson fail so badly hurts the brand image of an elite brand like American Express. AMEX has not rewritten the rules for advertising with this campaign - they’ve just proven that fundamentals do matter

Branding Bottom Line:
Amex tries to buy disaster coverage for its US Open champion and ends up with a mess.